Random Bits

The Captain has Thursdays off, and we often spend the day wandering around , checking out new places or revisiting old favorites.   Combine the wandering with a few real errands, and we can check something off the to-do list and feel productive!

 First stop - Applecrest Farm Orchards .  They recently built a new building for their farm store,  gussied up considerably from the old one and have up -scaled the displays as well.  Love the fancy new slate signs.   Who could resist these gorgeous colors?

Note the price PER OUNCE of these fancy mushrooms - pricey but yummy.

Then we checked out a local brewery, Earth Eagle Brewings.   It's a small, friendly spot with a great lunch menu.  

I 'm not a big beer drinker, but when in a brewery, best not to ask for wine!  I had the 'Merican Revolution, intrigued by the addition of Early Grey Tea.   

The beer was good, but the sandwich was fantastic - applewood smoked bacon, date spread and Manchego cheese all melted into gooey goodness.   

Love this sign in a storefront:

And a funny tee:

And for a palate-cleanser from the idea of a Trump presidency, this peaceful scene on the way home:

Have a great long weekend!

Brunch!

We're big fans of brunch; so much so that The Captain jokes that we worship at the Church of Saint Benedict.  What's not to like about brunch - lazy breakfast with multiple options, some alcoholic beverage usually included, then a slow slide right into lunch fare and the desert table finale.  One of our local spots has the Chocolate Fountain of Goodness - sort of a throw-back to the tacky 80s, but not gonna lie, love strawberries that have been under that fountain!

This morning we had The Captain's brother and his wife for brunch.  Since my SIL is a fan of the brunch buffet, I decided to have some fun with it and create a buffet experience for her.  I spread out the food on our bar and made little tents to identify everything.  Sadly,  no Fountain of Goodness!

The egg strata is an easy brunch dish - assemble it  the night before and just bake in the morning.  Recipe from Smitten Kitchen and available here.  It's easy and versatile - I've added mushrooms, peppers and topped with tomato slices.  You can add sausage, bacon, or ham (or all three if you really like the salted pork products!) and switch out the cheeses to what you have on hand or like.





I saw the waffle cookies - Boot Tracks-  on Huffington Post.   Yummy little chocolate bites with a hint of coffee.

And a totally non-brunch-related photo of little spring bouquets from our gardens.  Hsappy  Mimosa-in-your-cup  Sunday!



Can We Just Move In?

The Captain and I decided on an impromptu get-away this week and he found an inn in northern New Hampshire that looked promising.  The Adair Country Inn in Bethlehem, NH delivered on every promise! 

The Inn was the private home built for Dorothy Adair and where she lived with her husband for decades.  In 1992 it was converted to an inn with 9 quest rooms  the care of owners  Nick & Betsy Young and innkeepers Ilja and Brad Chapman.   The Chapmans are the perfect inn keepers- friendly, knowledgeable, professional , and interested in their guests without being intrusive.

We stayed in this room - the Huntington.  Attention to detail makes this Inn special - fresh flowers, beautiful linens, ribbon-tied towels, and a  personalized welcome sign.  The special tradition of warm cookies on the bed at turn-down is quite a treat!

The view of Mount Washington from our room:

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Dorothy  was a fashionista of her day, with a thing for hats.  They are displayed throughout the house with this fun group  on the stair- landing perched on little stands.  Note all the books - one of the largest private libraries of the day.

The gardens were designed by the Olmsted brothers, designers of the gardens in Central Park.





Fortunately the weather was spectacular, so we were able to eat out on the terrace, overlooking some of the gardens. 

Again, attention to details make all the difference- who could resist this sweet cup?

These popovers were the best I've ever had.  I tried to squeeze the secret out of Brad Chapman, the Popover King!  Turns out he has a few tricks - not over-mixing the batter , in fact, leaving it pretty lumpy (I've been doing mine in the blender!), refrigerating the batter overnight, and baking the popovers in heavy Pyrex cups sprayed with Pam.  Since I had to chisel my last batch out of the "non-stick" pan, I've thrown it away and am on the hunt for the heavy glass cups.  I also took home their cookbook, so I hope to be turning out some of these beauties soon.

We're already planning a return visit - maybe for fall foliage time. 

(In the interest of full-disclosure,  the Adair did not pay me for nor solicit this glowing review !)

Great Summer Salad

I've been celebrating my release from my temp job at the cube-farm by recreating some of the great salads at our local Whole Foods - wannabee.  Their salads are quite tasty, but I always think I can make a healthier (and less pricey) version.  So far I've made the farro salad and the Greek pasta salad - both definite keepers!

I saw this recipe on Ezra Pound Cake.   I love panzanella and the idea of making something similar with corn bread was too tempting.   The EPC version is from Jamie and Boby Deen's book, "The Deen Bros. Get Fired Up".  

Here is the recipe and some changes I made - minor for sure - hard to improve on the Brother's great recipe.

****************

Start with 1/2 to 1 corn bread - I used  a basic corn bread recipe and added the kernels from a leftover grilled ear of corn.  Cut corn bread into 1 inch cubes.

Next, prepare the vegetables:

2 cans black beans, drained

1-2 red peppers, diced.   I used several baby multi-colored peppers.

1/2 cup thinly sliced scallions, white and green parts.  I used fresh garlic and baby leeks from our farmer's market.

1/4 cup chopped basil.  I'd like to try this with cilantro, but my son has the cilantro tastes like soap gene, so I stuck with  basil.



Here are the vegetables ( minus the beans) getting acquainted with the dressing.  To make the dressing, whisk together:

6 Tblsp olive oil

2 Tblsp red wine vinegar

1 Tsp salt

1 Tsp freshly ground pepper

Drizzle over vegetables and stir to coat well.   I let the vegetables sit for a couple of hours to mingle the flavors.

Spread the cubed corn bread onto a cookie sheet and broil until golden.  I sprayed the corn bread cubes with a bit of olive oil for additional crunch.  Watch very carefully - I'm here to tell you they go from golden to blackened very quickly!

The recipe says to gently stir the corn bread cubes into the vegetables and toss to coat.   Since cornbread is pretty fragile, I used the the cornbread cubes as a bed for the salad - arrange some of the cornbread on the plate and top with the vegetable mixture. This keeps the cornbread relatively intact, plus eliminates  soggy cornbread should there be any leftovers.  The Deen brothers do recommend adding the toasted cubes to the salad at the very last minute to preserve their toasted crunch.

This was yummy and makes a great summer meatless dinner - enjoy!





Cakes (While Trying to Get Inspired to Make Art)

Check this out - from one of my favorite sites, Cake Wrecks. This beauty was made by Brianna of Sugar Dreams. Most of the cakes featured on Cake wrecks are, well of course, the wreck kind - cake decorating gone horribly wrong. Every so often they feature fantastic cakes, decorated by absolute artists.

I have no skill in the cake decorating department. Nada. Zip. Zero. When my oldest son was little, I wanted to make a special cake for his birthday. Family Circle magazine ( hey, it was the 70s, we all read FC!) had some cakes that they promised "anyone" could make. I decided to make the school bus one. You start with a 13x9x2 cake, follow the directions on cutting it into pieces, reassemble, frost and voila - instant school bus cake for your little prince. Well, my cake looked like a teetery yellow tower that got hit by a real school bus.

Art is art - whatever form it takes. Plus, you can eat this creation!

I've been in a creative slump for awhile and trying to find inspiration. The cake luggage reminded me of a calendar page I did. I love my little suitcase - I stamped it on a little scrap of glossy magazine paper that I'd been saving for ages and think it looks like aged leather. Maybe my muse is hiding inside that old leather case.

My Coffee Obsession

I love my coffee. I love lots of coffee in the morning and made a frightening discovery in Paris- Parisians don't have the same obsession about morning coffee that I do, or at least the same requirement for a large quantity of coffee to start the day. We were on the Metro early one morning with all the work commuters and I did not see one person with a mug of coffee. I did not see anyone walking the streets with a cup of coffee. How do these people function??

The Captain went out to find coffee for me one morning and came back with two tiny plastic cups (like those tiny little disposable bathroom cups) of espresso - from the 27/7 Internet cafe. No to-go coffee anywhere . It was Sunday and even Starbucks wasn't open until 9 a.m. This is the Starbucks near our hotel - very swanky!

Ah, but then we discovered our cafe tucked into a market square. It had wonderful wooden tables with inlaid numbers, fantastic breads and pastries and coffee - the wonderful double grand creme pictured above. All that plus a wonderful white chocolate spread for flaky croissants -yummy!!

May is for Graduation and Paris!

We just got back from California, where Daughter Number 2 graduated from law school. She's smart, funny, beautiful, and caring , and I'm not at all surprised at how well she's done. She was a thoughtful, smart , organized and fashionable little lady as a child! She wrote stories before she went to school, organized her younger sibs activities (sometimes more than they wanted!) , and went through a stage of never leaving the house without ribbons in her hair that coordinated with her outfit. Now she's all grown up and we're so proud of her.

(image from another great blog, Flea 52)

Today we are off to Paris - a fantastic birthday gift from our kids. It's our first time, so we've been pouring over travel books and maps. The Captain is a fan of Google Earth, so we've taken several "virtual" tours! I've also been pouring over one of my favorite blogs, Tongue In Cheek, and determined to find some of the fantastic brocantes she haunts. I'm not all that interested in fancy fashion shopping in Paris , but I am on a mission to find some old cards, letters, buttons, lace, string - little lovelies. I love old paper, fabric, buttons, small unidentifiable doo-dads, and if perchance there is also text or numbers involved, I'm practically verklempt!

I do plan a new diet while in Paris - the one that involves mostly pastries, pots-de-creme au chocolat, cheese, wine, and bread. Vive la France!

Celebration!

Whew, think we're finally over the Nastiest. Bug. Ever. To celebrate, we went to a local farmers' market over the weekend. In keeping with our New Year's resolutions, we're trying to eat more locally grown food, so we were delighted to find local winter farmers' markets. We are regulars at the summer ones, but just found out about the winter offerings. This weekend the market was at a greenhouse and it was mobbed - police directing traffic, cars parked all up and down the road - crazy!

There isn't much for vegetables yet, of course, but I did snag some lovely little beet greens. There were fish vendors and several small farmers selling organic, humanely raised meat. We've cut way back on our carnivorous tendencies, so even though "happy" meat is more expensive, we're probably spending less than we were on the industrial stuff. The Captain found some huge pork chops and ground beef for his nights to cook.

These lovely duck eggs were our fun find. They are so amazing -- blue-green or brown speckled and BIG - how could we pass up these beauties? So this morning, I made scrambled duck eggs - a first for me. I couldn't bear to break the shells, so recruited The Captain's help in blowing out the eggs. A careful poke or two with a skewer, a bit of back and forth to break the yoke, some huffing and puffing and the eggs plopped out. ( Easy for me to say, The Captain did all the work). These eggs are really thick, almost the consistency of pudding. Tasty, tasty and so pretty - that's a lot of goodness from a little duck! We rounded out our feast with toast with maple butter from Dean's Sugar House in Charlemont, Mass - JD makes the best-ever maple butter!

The shells found a new home in a great little nest - I know ducks don't live in little nests in trees, but they look so darn cute! The nest is in my new studio -stay tuned for the final installment on the reno!On the way out, I bought a couple packets of seeds and some pussy willows - spring is here and we are over the plague - life is good!

Hoping and wishing and thinking of spring!

Like everyone living where winter loves to linger, I'm so very ready for spring. I'm trying to follow this advice: "It is better to find joy in every season than to be hopelessly in love with spring." This view from our deck makes that a bit difficult:

Here is a page I made for my 2010 calendars that speaks to my hate-hate relationship with winter. I stamped the flourishes with acrylic paint, then added the text (distressed a bit) from a wonderful French flower book. I cut out the flowers from the same book, sanded and added a bit of Rock Candy Stickles from Tim Holtz. I love the sentiment - a Kay Foley stamp from River City Rubberworks. I love this stamp and all of Kay Foley's stamps!

Check out those beauties from Hello Naomi. Until spring actually makes an appearance, enjoy these lovely treats and remember, " No winter lasts forever; no spring skips its turn."

Well, here it is, blog post number 1 !

New Year resolutions are looming large - making them is easy, keeping them not so much.

One of mine for this year is to eat more responsibly, a la Michael Pollan's recommendations. Practically speaking, our ( since I do most of the cooking, my resolutions for what we eat are also the default resolutions of the Captain as well), resolutions are to eat less, more vegetables and less meat, meat and eggs grown humanely , and less processed food. This last one means I have to give up my "fat-free" half and half , having recently discovered that it's second ingredient is high-fructose corn syrup!!

The Captain sent me this great link:

http://www.wspa-usa.org/pages/2481_eat_humane.cfm

You can enter your grocery store, select a product and find out which are grown humanely. This week my focus is the egg and avoiding eggs from chickens raised in those horrid cages, overfed and over-medicated!

We recently had some very fresh eggs from free-to-roam the Vermont country-side chickens. They had amazingly brilliant yellow yolks, almost orange. No more sad chickens producing eggs for us!

The Captain wants to raise chickens, mostly to amuse our adorable grandaughter. We're investigating some way of containing the birdies while still allowing for wandering about. I've agreed to this chicken venture as long as we get some that produce those beautiful speckled eggs.